Morning Everyone,
I received the following today and thought all of you might enjoy it too
:-) Hope you have a great weekend!!
Regards,
Nancy E Parr---Hostess
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Evolution of a Trunk (from the Sunday Afternoon Rocking series)
Long ago, when I was a little girl, my parents bought an old dome lidded
trunk at an auction. They cleaned it up, painted it up, and put it to
practical use as a little girl's toy chest. One day, as a young wife with a
love of tradition, I realized the antique value of it and dug it out to be
a part of my everyday surroundings again. And a later day still, I began to
realize some other value, and began to realize that it was after all,
simply another tool to provoke thought....
1852
Papa brought two surprises for me today. I have never seen him as he is
these days, and it is both a source of joy and a source of pain. I wish I
had known this side of him before now, and it seems very sad that my stern
gruff father is letting me finally see his softness at the very time I will
soon bid him good bye. Never would he let me wear a red ribbon in my hair
and frowned on such as frivolous. Today he bid me hold out my hand and in
it he placed a red ribbon. I gasped with both pleasure and surprise and
thought I caught just a glimpse of something shining in his eyes before he
turned away. He went out to the wagon then and hauled in a trunk. A
beautiful domed trunk with flowers embossed in the tin...and said simply
"you'll be needing this", and walked away. Tomorrow I will pack my things
in the trunk, that even has a special tray for my bonnets. I will tuck away
the memory locket Maranda has given me there too. How I will miss my
sister! And two days hence I will leave my home, my father, my sister, and
my state with William...to be his bride.
1902
Today I packed away those things of Mama's I could not bear to let go. I
packed them away in that old round topped trunk she always told me her papa
gave her back in Illinois just before she was to marry. I could not bear to
get rid of that either, she loved it so, and today I had John carry it up
to the attic out of the way. I packed away the dress she said she married
in and traveled in all on the same day, and the locket with the braided
hair of her beloved sister encased inside. Later perhaps I will climb those
stairs now and then and open the trunk and when I see her things and smell
the scent of them, for just a moment it might be a bit like having a visit
with Mama again...
1937
Charles and I have been most of the week cleaning out Mother's house. It
has been heartbreaking to sell her things but I have no way to take them
back with me, and the most of them simply are not things I can really use
anyway. Charles said I must be very selective about what I keep as we
simply cannot afford to ship a great deal, but I did decide to keep that
old trunk that always sat up in the attic. I threw out the ratty moth eaten
clothing in it, and the books I gave to the library there in town. There
were a few odds and ends of jewelry but I don't believe they were of any
value and I gave those away as well, except of course for that dreadful bit
of braided hair encased in a locket! I have no clue why such a thing would
ever have been worn but that I threw away along with those faded old
letters tied in the nastiest old red ribbon! Charles is right...Mother was
a dreadful pack rat. The trunk however does have possibilities and would
make for good storage. I got to thinking that perhaps with a bit of paint,
Elizabeth might like to have this as a hope chest, and if not, well I
suppose I can store winter sweaters in it.
1959
Today we went to an auction at a very old house and Mommy and Daddy bought
me something! I was not at all sure what they wanted it for and never saw
anything quite like it but they said it was for me. It is a trunk with a
pretty curved top on it. They said it would be my toy box now and Daddy
drilled a big round hole in the back of it. He said he knew that I had more
sense, but that one of my friends might think it fun to hide inside and
that would never do, so if they were so silly at least they could breathe
until someone managed to get them out. There was even a little shelf that
sat inside on the top of rest of the trunk and I wanted to keep it but
Daddy said it would be too much trouble to mend, and so he threw that away.
Mommy sat the trunk outside on the picnic table and painted it a pretty
blue just the shade of a robin's egg. I got to pick out the color myself!
She started to peel the paper inside and was going to put new wallpaper
there instead, but I talked her out of that one. There is a picture just
inside the top of two children in very old fashioned clothing sledding down
a hill, and I did not want the picture ruined even if it is yellowed and
peeling.
1982
It is amazing how I have taken the things I grew up with for granted for so
long, and now what treasures they are! Today I dug deep in the storage
closet at my parents' house until I managed finally to unearth that old
trunk that was my toy box! What possibilities it has! I can hardly wait to
strip that old blue paint off of it and see what it looks like when it is
cleaned up and restored. I am so thrilled that the paper lining inside is
intact! It will look perfect in a corner of my family room, and I will
store my children's baby clothes and school momentos there.
2000
One day before long I will begin to think which child should receive which
treasure...and this will be no easy task. So many stories, so much family
history...and which would appreciate, would see beyond the objects to an
underlying meaning, a reason, understand roots? Sometimes I wonder over the
treasures that "happened" into our family too...that really were a story
before our own. Take that old trunk for example. It has been mine for
nearly half a century now. Well I remember the day when I had both my
mother and father, and they were so proud to buy me the trunk and so
pleased to fix it especially for a little girl's needs and whims. And when
I was a young mother I stored baby clothes in it, and packed away little
stories my children wrote in school. But before that? I do not know. A
hundred years before that it began with someone else's story and somewhere
in the world today is a person who if I only knew, and he or she only
knew...would treasure that trunk even more for roots far deeper than a
little girl's toy chest or a receptacle for a young mother's momentos. But
who did it belong to? And where are the descendents now? No way to know of
course...and I wonder...how many of my own family's roots escaped us, are
residing now in an antique mall or a museum, are gracing a stranger's home?
No way to know of course...
just a thought,
jan
Copyright ©2000JanPhilpot
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Thanks, jan)
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